be a quorum. It was required of the representatives to be freeholders, and each town for the present was to have two representatives and no more; but this arrangement was made subject to be changed by law.

Bills passed by the Council and representatives might be rejected by the governor. Laws ap

proved by him went at once into effect, but were to be forthwith reported to the King, who might annul them at any time within three years from their enactment. The governor was to be commander-in-chief of the militia, and to appoint military officers. He was also, with the consent of the Council, to appoint judges and all other officers connected with the courts. The General Court was to constitute judicial courts (except Courts of Admiralty, which were reserved for the jurisdiction of the crown, and except Probate Courts, which were to be constituted by the governor in Council); to appoint, with the governor's concurrence, all officers, besides such as were military or judicial; and to levy taxes on all proprietors and inhabitants. A General Court was to come together on the last Wednesday in May of every year, and at other times when summoned by the governor, who might also adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve it. A great step was, that the religious element was eliminated from the government; the qualification of a voter was no longer to be membership of a church, but the possession of a freehold worth two pounds ster

ling a year, or of personal property to the amount of forty pounds sterling. Liberty of conscience and of worship was secured to all Protestants; and it was provided that, in litigated civil cases not affecting real estate, appeals might be made from the courts to the King in Council when the amount in controversy exceeded three hundred pounds. Natives and inhabitants of the province were to enjoy "all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects . . . . as if they were born within the realm of England." Trees of two feet in diameter at a foot's distance from the ground, growing on common land, were to belong to the King, for the use of the royal navy.

The conferring of the franchise upon freeholders by the new charter, and the power given to the King to repeal the laws,- for this was the sense of his right to revise them, — to entertain appeals from the courts of justice, and to appoint a governor with prerogatives liable to pernicious abuse,

some of these provisions were enough to make the instrument unpalatable to Mather and to the best men of that constituency for which he was acting. The powers were dangerous in the best of circumstances. In any hands they were susceptible of being used in ways to humble and distress the province. Neither the character of the reigning sovereign, though as yet that was little known, nor the influences which surrounded him, afforded assurance that even by him they would be leniently used. But what might they

become though this was a consideration which the agents could not urge-if the insecure throne. of the Dutch invader should be overturned, and his father-in-law should again be able to wreak his anger on the Puritan colony which had so affronted him? He who could so act without law as King James had done in the usurped government of Andros, how would he act when on his side he should have law which the most upright judges of England must respect and enforce?

On the other hand, there were features of the constitution of the Legislature, of a favorable aspect to popular rights. The first branch was to be nominated by electors, of which the second branch, consisting of representatives of the towns, constituted the major part, though the nomination did not constitute a choice without the governor's approval. Further, by the provincial charter the power of the purse was formally given to the General Court. The Court, and not the governor, might impose and levy taxes, and moneys could not be drawn by the governor from the treasury, except by a warrant issued with the advice and consent of the Council. By the charter the governor could have no money from Massachusetts except what the people of Massachusetts might see fit to grant him. Here, in the last resort, was the security for what remained of the degree of independence which had been once possessed. Herein consisted the guaranty for

some degree of self-government. Future circumstances might be such as to require in Massachusetts a repetition of the experiment, made in England a half-century before, to determine whether executive usurpation could be checked by the tax-laying power.

Of the new arrangement touching the extent of her territory, Massachusetts had no reason to complain. If she had failed of retaining New Hampshire, she had received the government of the more congenial people of Plymouth; 1691. her title to Maine, fruitlessly opposed July 9. again by the heir of Gorges while the charter was in dispute, was quieted by it; and the whole extensive territory of Nova Scotia, and of what is now New Brunswick, was a new acquisition, however questionable its value might be when estimated in relation to the cost of its defence, and to the fact that, by virtue of the treaty of Breda, it was still a property of the King of France.

The agents well knew what disapprobation awaited them at home for whatever share they had had in bringing their constituents into this new condition of formal and definite subjection to England. Cooke and Oakes could not bring themselves to express any assent to the transaction. With sincere, and not, as many thought, simulated reluctance, Mather made up his mind to accept the arrangement as the best that it was possible to obtain. Nor was it by any means

without its advantages as compared with a mere recovery of the old charter unaltered. It expressly made some things lawful which had hitherto been assumed by more or less violent construction, as the right to tax non-freemen, to conduct the public business by representatives, to inflict capital punishment, to create courts of justice, and to prove wills. But independently of substantial reasons for apprehending that under some future sovereign of England, if not in the present reign, the new charter might be made an instrument of practical misrule, it was a heavy blow to the pride of patriots who had scarcely ceased to cherish the vision of ultimate independence.

But what could be done? Mather was assured with united voice by the lawyers with whom he advised, that the annulling of the charter which had taken place was unquestionably valid in law, hasty and unjust as the proceedings had been; that it was impossible at present to obtain a legal reversal of it; and that an attempt to do so, if encouraged by any future circumstances, would not be prejudiced by his accepting the present settlement, inasmuch as neither could his assent bind the colony, nor could the present submission of the colony bar a future demand for its rights. Direct resistance was out of the question. There was not even an approach to unanimity in the colony. Even among native citizens there was not a preponderance of agreement